Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/263

Immediately after its organization the new Panama Canal Company resumed the work of excavation in the Emperador and Culebra cuts with a force of men which has been reported as varying between 1,900 and 3,600. It also gave thorough consideration to the subject of the best plan for the completion of the canal. The company's charter provided for the appointment of a special engineering commission of five members by the company and the liquidator to report upon the work done and the conclusions to be drawn from its study. This report

Map of Central America and the Isthmus.

was to be rendered when the amount expended by the new company should reach about one half of its capital. At the same time the company also appointed a 'Comité Technique' constituted of fourteen eminent European and American engineers, to make a study of the entire project, which was to avail itself of existing data and the results of such other additional surveys and examinations as it might consider necessary. The report rendered by this committee was elaborate, and it was made November 16, 1898. It was referred to the statutory commission of five, to which reference has already been made, which commission reported in 1899 that the canal could be constructed within the limits of time and money estimated. On December 30, 1899, a